Transcript: Hurricane Sandy press briefing Q&A on restoring power

Question:
How important will it be to get power back and what are FEMA’s specific capabilities in terms of helping power companies get that done quicker?

FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate:
Generally, outside of areas of heavy damage, power restoration tends to drive almost all of the rest of response activities. So getting the power back on is a public safety need as well as the need to get communities back on their feet.

FEMA has pre-deployed generators to support the Governors for certain key facilities to get back online.

But we’re also working very closely – the way the federal government works is FEMA is a coordinating body. A lot of our federal agencies take the lead in certain areas. So in the case of energy, it’s the Department of Energy that’s the lead agency that we coordinate energy issues.

So the Secretary and his team have been working with and talking with the major power companies on additional assistance they may need as well working with our teams with the Governor to expedite anything on our end that would enable them to get in faster.